Revenge of the Backfiring Sort
by Vampire Toy
Summary: When a certain someone gets more than she asked for and loses her memory, could it really be that the Turks have made her one of their own? Could Rufus’s plans for revenge be more twisted than anyone could have imagined?


Revenge of the Backfiring Sort

By: Vampire Toy

Rating: PG13-M just in case

Summary: When a certain someone gets more than she asked for and loses her memory, could it really be that the Turks have made her one of their own? Could Rufus's plans for revenge be more twisted than anyone could have imagined?

XXX

It was silly, she thought, that Cloud had dragged her along to help him with this. Not that she minded much, she would be glad to help him find a birthday gift for Tifa, she loved Tifa; the only problem was that Cloud didn't _actually_ need her help. As an excuse, he told Tifa he was taking Marlene to the church, something they did regularly and something of little suspicion.

But now Marlene had nothing to do.

Cloud ran around frantically as she sat in lounge after lounge, chair after chair. Currently they resided in the deepest part of downtown, ever so close to the Shinra Corp main building. Something that, from the large shop window that Marlene was peering out of, looked much more interesting than watching Cloud run around like a half-dead chicken.

Come to think of it, all things anti-Avalanche were pretty interesting, simply because no one would tell her much about any of them. All she'd ever been told was 'they're bad'. Marlene rested her elbow on the rim of the window and continued to stare at the large building that seemed to draw in only darkness while everything around it shone bright.

She turned her head back to face Cloud; he was still searching desperately through things for Tifa. He was so preoccupied that Marlene doubted he'd realize she was gone. Actually, she knew for a fact he wouldn't realize if she were gone; he'd done it about five times that day. He'd leave the store and forget her, she'd be in the bathroom and come out and he'd be gone, she would even be in plain sight and he'd run out the store without a word.

So he wouldn't notice if she were gone now.

Besides, Marlene already had a gift for Tifa, it wasn't her fault if Cloud had forgotten and delayed his gift-getting.

Besides, she just wanted to have a look around, maybe find out something interesting and neat, then she could understand the conversations of the adults in her little family when she would creep downstairs at night to hear them talk.

Maybe they'd let her talk too?

The little brunette smiled and stood, turning to look at the blonde again.

"I'm leaving." She said.

Cloud was already down the next aisle.

Marlene smiled and shook her head and promptly walked out.

She wouldn't be gone long and probably be back before Cloud even got a gift.

There was nothing to worry about.

Marlene strolled curiously through the dirty city, making her way through the dingy crowd that came with it and finally pattering all the way to the large Shinra building. It was much bigger when she was in front of it looking up. She tilted her head slightly before continuing her trek inside, walking past two tall uniformed men who were arguing something about their girlfriend; singular, _girlfriend_.

She fidgeted with the doors but the wouldn't open. Marlene cast a side glance at a rock that hid behind the not-so-healthy-looking-despite-the-fact-that-they're-green bushes that rested in front of the Shinra Corp. she paddled over to it and picked it up. She turned to throw it when she saw a man in a white lab coat putting a card into the slot to open the door, wherein he promptly walked in. She followed quickly, stuffing the rock in her pocket.

It was a nice rock; maybe she could make something out of it when she got home.

The inside of the building looked shiny and posh and Marlene stood a moment in awe at the glimmer of it all. Someone almost tripped over her and she decided that standing still wasn't a good idea. She plodded along after what she thought was the white-coat man that she had come in with. She didn't get a good look at him, but how many people with white coats could there be in one building anyway?

She figured she'd follow him wherever he was going, easily remember how to get out, and presto! Adventure for the day complete.

The man seemed to take a lot of turns and Marlene became nervous, wondering if she could really remember the route back out. She shrugged it off, however, when the man made a part of the wall open! She stared in awe; all he'd done was poke at a plant!

He entered and the door closed before Marlene was able to make it and she huffed, eyeing the plant suspiciously. It was a lone plant in the building of few plants and upon closer inspection it looked pretty fake. Marlene began to poke and prod at the plant as she'd seen the man do.

No luck.

The door stayed closed and the plant was not magical at all.

Marlene refused to let the plastic fern-like-thing beat her. She pushed parts of the plant away, hoping to find a button of sorts in the soil, or on its leaves.

By the end of her excavation she'd completely destroyed the fake plant and still had not found any way to open the wall. She sighed and grabbed handfuls of the plant, stuffing it back into the dirt mournfully.

Suddenly a beep went off.

Marlene turned; the wall was open. She squealed and ran inside.

It was an elevator! She looked up at the buttons and frowned; they were too high to reach!

She stood on her toes and poked at the nearest buttons; one of them was bound to be the right one.

The elevator finally started moving and she grinned proudly at herself for figuring it out.

Down it went; almost never ending, Marlene thought.

Finally it did stop and Marlene's eyes threatened to pop out of her head at the sight she saw.

Hundreds and hundreds of men in white coats! Giant bottles with weird creatures and wall upon wall of computer-like structures.

No sci-fi movie could ever compare to the glitz and glam of the bustling and yet terrifying layer-like chamber. She trotted slowly behind and in between the white-clad men, looking around her in awe and amazement; wait till her daddy and Cloud and Tifa and Denzel and EVERYONE heard about what she saw!

Her tiny feet pattered almost soundlessly until she reached a balcony overlooking an even LARGER chamber with even MORE shiny and beeping things. The bars were wide enough for her to peek out over the chamber and she crawled under, clinging to the railing carefully as she observed her new surroundings.

Suddenly someone from below looked up, then someone else, then another person, one lab-coat man shouted, another pointed, many more looked up at Marlene and she became nervous; why were they shouting at her?

"You shouldn't be in here girl!" one shouted.

"Your in big trouble!" another added.

Trouble; Marlene didn't want to be in trouble! Her daddy would be so angry! And Cloud would get in trouble too! And Tifa would know he'd forgotten and delayed! And then Tifa would have a bad birthday!

No! Trouble was bad and Marlene was NOT going to let them tattle.

"Hey!" someone grabbed at her from above and she screeched, lurching away from them and letting go of her only support.

She fell.

So far down.

A scream stuck in her throat.

She fell into darkness.

Her scream lost with her.

XXX

Rufus Shinra rubbed his temples; this couldn't be for real.

He had been watching the security tapes over and over and over again.

She didn't even try.

A little girl, couldn't be more than seven or eight, had managed to get into the Shinra Headquarters AND down into the laboratory!

Someone would be fired for this.

The scene replayed; the little brunette bopping past the scientists with ease and no one even giving so much as a glance.

No, not just fired, he would make someone's life HELL.

Apparently the girl was too short for anyone to really notice her. Which of course, was no excuse; he paid them to be alert ALL the time.

There was a knock at the door.

"What?" he snapped; irritated enough by the very fact that all this had happened.

Tseng walked in, professional as always, his hands behind his back and a calm expression on his face.

"Oh, Tseng, well….what did you find out about her?" Rufus calmed slightly seeing it was someone he could actually trust to get a job done.

"One, her health is fine save for a nasty bruise on the side of her head; miraculously in fact, the only thing that could be considered 'wrong' is that she doesn't remember a thing."

"Well that's good." Rufus muttered.

"No sir, you don't understand…"

Oh no, there was _actual_ bad news.

Rufus turned and eyed his most trusted employee; "I don't understand what?"

Tseng seemed slightly nervous but regained his cool demeanor quickly; "She doesn't remember _anything_, not her name, not her age, not where she came from, nothing."

Rufus knew from the moment Tseng made a shift in his confidence that someone along those lines had occurred.

He hated it.

"So now what?" Rufus muttered, mostly to himself.

"Well sir, we did find some things about her and I do believe it will please you."

"Hnn?"

"Her name is Marlene, she is the daughter of a member of AVALANCHE."

Rufus' interests were perked; "So…they used her to spy on us?"

The idea was too much to believe and rather appalling.

"No. But we could."

Rufus stayed silent, his fingers gracing his chin curiously.

"The program that our scientists have been working on is pretty much success." Tseng continued, "All we need is someone to use it on."

"A child?" it was something of a whisper that fell from the President's mouth in some shock.

"Using Hojo's old technique, we've perfected it to work flawlessly. All these years of research and work have not been wasted. I believe now is the time to complete this project."

Rufus was silent, spinning in his chair to face the window overlooking the dingy city.

Use a child.

Use a child for these experiments.

He felt uneasy about something so risky, but Tseng wasn't risky.

"Sir, there is no cure for amnesia, but we could give her a new life through this. Not only that…" Rufus spun around as Tseng's lips lifted ever so slightly in an ever so small smile; "…but this could rid you of AVALANCHE for good."

Rid of AVALANCHE for good.

No more nasty terrorist attacks form the nasty terrorist group.

Not a bad deal.

"And the child will live to be something great." Tseng added.

The child will live.

Sounded like a plan.

XXX

A/N: 8D I'm insane. Whelp, lemme know what you think, R & R please. Have any questions, please ask, thanks for reading!


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